Chak Shun Yu

Hi, I'm Chak Shun Yu, a software engineer with a current focus on React, former Storybook maintainer, and technical writer. This blog is where I write about everything I encounter and learn during my journey to become a better developer. The main topics I focus on are React, JavaScript, testing, readability, and team productivity.

Should You Use A ClassName Prop?

August 08, 2022 - 6 minutes

CSS styling plays an integral role in the development of React components. One of the most interesting challenges is designing a component’s API around styling features. The most common way is exposing a className prop, but is that a good idea and are there better options?

5 Important Things To Check When Picking NPM React Libraries

July 04, 2022 - 4 minutes

NPM packages are essential to our jobs as React developers. However, with over 1.3 million packages on the registry and varying degrees of quality, picking the most suitable one isn’t always straightforward. To help, this article goes over 5 important aspects to NPM React libraries that you should pay attention to before picking them.

Comparing 3 React Accordion Libraries

June 19, 2022 - 6 minutes

In the world of React development, there are so many third-party libraries Because of that, it’s easy to get lost in deciding which library to use. This article looks into 3 different libraries for implementing an accordion while going over requirements, what to consider, and drawing comparisons.

7 TypeScript Utility Types For React Developers

June 06, 2022 - 6 minutes

It's hard to imagine React development without TypeScript nowadays. However, being a good React developer doesn’t automatically translate into being a good TypeScript developer. This article goes over 7 different utility types that are helpful to React developers on a daily basis.

How To Type React useCallback Using TypeScript

May 22, 2022 - 4 minutes

Every React developer will know of the useCallback hook and have tried to integrate it with TypeScript. However, there are various ways to do so. This article covered three different ways, namely by typing only the callback parameter(s), typing the returning value, or the call itself.

How To Filter Nullable Values From An Array Using TypeScript

May 15, 2022 - 5 minutes

In the realm of JavaScript development, it's common to filter out nullable values from an array. However, doing this with TypeScript doesn’t always result in the expected typings. This article covers how to sort that out.

5 CSS Concepts React Developers Should Know

April 24, 2022 - 4 minutes

No matter whether you're new to React or an experienced developer, the world of CSS can be quite daunting to explore. This article covers the 5 CSS concepts that I think every React developer should know based on my experience using React on a daily basis.

How To Create More Intuitive Styling Using CSS border-box Box Model

April 06, 2022 - 3 minutes

An integral part of CSS styling resolves around the CSS box model, which is the interaction between the content area, paddings, border, and margins. Contrary to the default model, using the border-box box model has my preference for creating more intuitive styling.

Multiline Text Truncation With CSS line-clamp

April 06, 2022 - 4 minutes

Multiline text truncation is a common user interface design. It allows for saving precious screen estate, making UI more uniform, and prioritization of information for the user. This article explores how to implement it using CSS's line-clamp.

How Does Shallow Comparison Work In React?

March 27, 2022 - 5 minutes

Shallow comparison is a concept all over React development and documentation. It plays a key role in React’s internals, but it’s not often explained. This article covers how it works by diving into the source code and finishes with some interesting takeaways.

Why Did And Don’t You Need To Import React

March 13, 2022 - 3 minutes

Since React v17.0, you don’t have to import React anymore in your JSX files. But why was this seemingly unused import when creating React components necessary in the first place? And why isn’t it anymore now?

A Deep Dive Comparison Between useMemo And useCallback

March 07, 2022 - 6 minutes

For memoization in React, we have 2 extremely similar hooks useCallback and useMemo. But is there a difference or are they only wrappers around the same logic with different names for the sake of convenience?

A Fundamental Guide To React Suspense

February 27, 2022 - 7 minutes

After several years, Suspense will finally be officially released with React 18. But what is it, why do we need it, what issues does it address, and what are the benefits?

An Introductory Guide To Concurrent Rendering

February 12, 2022 - 4 minutes

React 18 will introduce a new and exciting mechanism called concurrent rendering. It opens up a world of opportunities for React developers to control user experiences, but what is it exactly and why do we need it?

Do You Need To Master JavaScript Before Learning React?

January 16, 2022 - 3 minutes

It can very difficult to decide whether a certain frontend framework or library is worth it to pick up. There are so many choices and the field changes on a frequent basis. But even in 2022, there are still plentiful reasons to hop onto the React train if you haven’t already.

A Beginners Guide To Behaviour Testing In React

December 02, 2021 - 7 minutes

While the year has just started, 2022 is looking extremely exciting for the world of React development. This article goes over the topics that I think will make an enormous impact on the field of React development and that you should definitely look out for in 2022.

How To Mock A React Component In Jest

November 07, 2021 - 3 minutes

After nearly a full year of writing technical about code readability, I learned a lot about it. But the most important thing that I learned about writing readable code is that it isn't for myself, but for others.

This Is My 10 Questions React Code Reviewing Routine

October 24, 2021 - 8 minutes

Although behaviour testing is extremely relevant in the field of React, not every developer will have equal familiarity and mastery of it. This article discusses a set of fundamental questions related to behaviour testing in React based on experience in multiple React engineering teams.

4 Common Patterns You Can Easily Focus On In Your React Code Reviews

October 18, 2021 - 7 minutes

State management is one of the most important aspects of React development. However, not every state update should result in a re-render. This article covers how to prevent unnecessary state update re-renders by avoiding the state update or triggering the state update with the existing state.

6 Concrete Tips That Will Make Your React Pull Requests Easier To Review

October 10, 2021 - 8 minutes

Mocking React components is a crucial skill for creating proper React tests. This article will show you how to mock your React components in different scenarios using Jest, namely default exported components, named exported, components that come from ES6 modules and including the props with them.

My Simple Checklist For Well Tested React Components

September 26, 2021 - 6 minutes

As a React developer, reviewing is part of our daily responsibilities. However, knowing what to focus on during React reviews isn't a trivial task. This article shares all the questions that I ask myself when reviewing React code and will help you navigate your way through React reviews.

React Readability Analysis Of Implementing Custom Hooks

September 13, 2021 - 12 minutes
Readable React

Besides development, React design patterns can also be used to increase the quality of code reviews. However, doing so isn't trivial and requires a different understanding. This article covers how to easily integrate several common React patterns into your React reviews.

What Are Proper Use Cases For Snapshot Testing React Components?

August 28, 2021 - 5 minutes
Testable React

As code proposers and members of a team, we have the responsibility to set up our reviewers for success. This article covers 6 concrete tips that will make your React pull requests easier to review and allow you to receive higher-quality reviews today.

How Readable Are Your React Component's TypeScript Props Typing?

August 15, 2021 - 11 minutes
Readable React

As code proposers, we try to pass all the checkmarks of the reviewer. Oftentimes the focus is on the code, but there's more to a PR than just the code. This article covers 5 non-code related mistakes that developer make that leads to their PRs becoming more difficult to review.

React Readability Analysis Of Inline Conditional Rendering

August 01, 2021 - 9 minutes
Readable React

Testing components is important in React development but is also often overlooked and neglected. After several years of not knowing what to test or how to approach it, I came up with a testing checklist. This article shares that checklist, discusses the topics, and will help you reach better tested React components.

How To Write Readable React Content States

July 20, 2021 - 10 minutes
Readable React

Everyone hates meetings, especially bad ones. But in the current pandemic situations, remote meetings are part of our work more than ever. This article shares 5 actionable tips that helped us increase the efficiency of our meetings as an engineering team.

To Mock or Not to Mock, That is The Question

May 17, 2021 - 3 minutes

Reviewing is a core process in software development, but not all code reviews are created equally. This article shares 5 actionable tips that helped me deliver higher quality code reviews and will help you take your code reviews to the next level.

Why I'll definitely use mapDispatchToProps in Redux

January 05, 2020 - 4 minutes

Snapshot testing your React components is convenient, easy, and low effort, but they are also unreliable, unrealistic, and volatile. Over the years, they have fallen out of favour in the field of React testing. This article looks into the remaining proper use cases for snapshot testing React components.